Thursday, August 16, 2012

Henry's Big Boy Bed

There is a story behind Henry's new big boy bed. And it's a good one. Don't you just love when anything has a story!? It adds such richness to otherwise ordinary things. I mean, without the story, the bed would just be... a bed.

I'm the kind of girl who, in general, would rather buy new over choosing to DIY. I'm not snobby. I don't need new things. I mean, I like new things, I'll give you that. But, mostly I just have a habit of royally messing everything up. Especially if it involves paint. Oh, god. All the things I've ruined with paint!!!

But this was different. This was MY bed. As in, I have pictures of ME sleeping in it. See! I also had Strawberry Shortcake sheets. Because even in the 80s, I was awesome.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of baby Jenn -- let's take a minute to talk about how ADORABLE I was/am! So cute, right? Man, I need a little red-headed baby girl of my own! And not to go on too much of a tangent -- but why did everything in the 80s come in that awful yellow color??
And then, in the 90s, I slept in the bed until I went away to college. See if you can find the bed. It's kind of overshadowed by my teenage obsession to cut things out of magazines and staple them to my wall.
So, as you can see, the bed has history. I jumped on this bed as a little girl. I had dreams of what my life would be like when I grew up and became a mommy in this bed. I mean, I made out with my high school boyfriends in this bed! I just couldn't let this bed find a place anywhere but with me.

But even as this bed holds my childhood in it, its so much more than that. You see, this is my grandmother's bed. She gave it to me when I was a little girl. And in the last few years, when my grandmother grew too old and had to move from her apartment to assisted living where the bed she shared with her husband for 60+ years would no longer fit, this is the bed she slept on. And when she passed last September, she again, gave the bed back to me.

As you can now understand, my personal issues with paint had to take a backseat here. This bed is important to my family. So, I took inspiration from a girlfriend and one of my favorite bloggers, Stylish Patina, to use Annie Sloan paint to make the bed a nice manly blue (to help distract from the fact that this is a pretty notoriously girlie style of bed called "Jenny Lind"). I chose Napoleonic Blue and spent a weekend camped out with the paint, a brush and the bed in my living room.

Side note: anyone who might be considering bringing some new life to old furniture - well, I give this Annie Sloan stuff my seal of approval. It's a touch expensive. I paid $97 for the can of paint, a brush and a can of wax. But, that beats the $500 bed I had my eye on. I watched A LOT of youtube videos on how to do it, too. And I spent a few phone calls bothering my girlfriend making sure I was doing it right. And I sent out a couple of texts making sure it looked good to other people before waxing it. But, in the end, I'm happy and the paint proved pretty Jenn-proof.
Charlie helped long enough for me to snap a picture.
I was expecting, as with all things Henry, for the transition into his big boy bed to be a challenge. And it was. But that was very, very short lived.

After we put the bed in his room, he refused to say it was his bed. "No. That not my bed. That Charlie's bed!" We didn't push it. We left his crib in his room so he could get used to it. He liked reading books in the bed. And climbing onto the bed. But sleeping was a no-go. After a few days, Daddy and I knew just what to do to get Henry more interested in the big boy bed. We let Charlie sleep in it. After that, it was like a moth to a flame.

And the sweet baby slept in it happily and easily. And mommy was just slightly obsessed with sneaking in at night to see her very little boy in a very big bed.
The crib is still up because he just started staying in the bed for a nap two days ago so the bed's not exactly in it's final, intended position in the room. But, I'm really happy with the bed and couldn't wait for whenever my hub-a-lub gets around to breaking down the crib to take some photos.

Big boy beds are good for jumping!
...and for kicking!!!
...and for climbing!!!
But big boy beds are best... for sleeping.

Just saw you posted a big boy bed blog too! Such cute pics, Rach! I love the one where Braden is looking right in the camera! And also, Henry did not nap in it today. But I didn't know if for an hour and a half when I walked upstairs and found him reading in his chair.